According to the Work Service employment agency, around 60 percent of Polish-based Ukrainians could leave for the West.

Inglot said: “This poses a great risk to the Polish economy. Within two or three months the [country’s] labour shortage could expand from 165,000 to 0.5 million vacancies.”

“It would also trigger an enormous rise in wage pressures and lead to a drop in the competitiveness of [Polish] companies,” Inglot said. He added that as a result, the manufacture of consumer products would fall by 10 percent.

Rzeczpospolita estimated that well over a million Ukrainian workers are based in Poland. Around 426,000 are legally employed in the country, according to the paper, citing the Social Insurance Institution